Allright Sister! You are intelligent. You have questions because you are intelligent. For others, these questions don’t arise, either because they are content, simply to be a member in good standing, or because they are afraid that if they ask sensible questions, they will be condemned, either by the church or by God.
It has been a long time since Jesus walked on this earth. A few things change over time. There are two kinds of Christians. One group is called “fundamentalist”. They accept scripture literally…..every word. And the other group says that some of the narratives are allegorical.
For example, the Bible says that God wears a crown and sits on a throne. But the Catholic Church rejects that idea. Jesus says that he is the son of God, the Father. He prays to his Father, saying that he would like to avoid the crucifiction, but that if this is the will of the Father, then Jesus, says, “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” But God used Jesus, His son, for the purpose of creating faith in all of us, by showing us that we are eternal beings who can never die. But the church teaches us that Jesus is God. Jesus didn’t tell us to accept him as God. Jesus says that he is the servant of God, just like the oxen who is the servant of the man who ploughs his field. If the man says, “Turn right”, and pulls the reigns to the right, the oxen turns right. The ox is controlled by the reigns that go through the yoke that rests on the neck of the ox. And Jesus says, “Accept the yoke that I wear.” Jesus is God’s most obedient, loving son. And he teaches us what love of God really means. And he tells the scribes and the pharasies of the Jewish temple that love of God with all of our mind, with all of our heart, and all of our strength, is the highest rule that any scripture can put forward. Jesus tells us that being a “good” person, doing “good works” is not sufficiently pleasing to God. God wants our love - heartfelt personal love, just as we feel for our family members.
But if we were created as lovers of God, lovers who no ability to choose love of our own accord, that would not be the kind of love that God desires. He wants us to love him of our own accord, of our own free will. Therefore He has created us with the ability to choose.
So, we have a church that accepts that some of the descriptions of God are not to be taken literally. But at the same time, the church, that is comprised of men, has chosen to accept the parable of Adam and Eve, succumbing to the temptation of choosing wrongly, and being put out of the Garden of Eden, as the reason for the suffering that you and I endure today. The story of Adam and Eve is allegorical. This story refers to the misuse of our free will.
The snake is the symptom of enviousness. We cannot make friends with a poisonous snake. The business of the snake is to bite, whether one is a friend or a foe. The temptation of the soul is to be envious of God. “Why should God be the center of everyone’s attention? Why not me? Why can’t I be the most powerful, the most respected, the most feared? Why should everything be for the pleasure of the Lord? Why shouldn’t everything be for my pleasure? This is the temptation that arises in the hearts of the envious. Envious of God. This is the misuse of our tiny independence, our tiny free will. And this is why we are here in the material realm, instead of being in the spiritual realm with God. We are the fallen angels.
But God is very kind, inconceivably kind. Just like when a city is built on this planet - there is a plan for a corrective institution, a jail. The city fathers are not looking forward to locking people up. But they know that there will be individuals who cannot abide by the laws, cannot understand their constitutional position, their rights and their obligations. The prison is not there to harm them. The prison is there to redeem them. To help them find their way as well-adjusted members of society.
The “Garden of Eden” is not on this earth. No archeologist has found it, or will ever find it. Because the “Garden of Eden” is the spiritual realm, where God abides, on His throne, surrounded by, and glorified by, and served with love, by the “heavenly host”. In God’s kingdom, in the spiritual world, there is no hard work. No one has to survive by the sweat of his brow. Everything is alive and well. There is no old age. There is no death. There is no disease. It is the Garden of Eden. And we are here.
Not everyone is here. No. The heavenly host abides with God. But we are here. We are here because we have succumbed to the temptation of being envious of God. We wanted that position for ourselves. Why are we offended when people don’t praise us, don’t respect us? Because we all wasn’t to be someone special. Just consider the saints. If someone is offensive to them, the feel compassion for them. Didn’t Jesus pray to our Father, “Forgive them Lord, for they don’t know what they are doing.” But in this world, if someone is aggressive, we immediately have wars. We want respect. We want to be special. Therefore God has placed us in the material world. We are in therapy. We are here for one reason; for our redemption. And the reason that life is so difficult here, so painful, in so many ways - it is all part of our therapy……to break down our vanity, our false pride.
Just consider the history of planet earth, as far as the books can describe. It is all about wars, about imperialism, about slavery, about exploitation. Why? Because as soon as a man becomes a little powerful, he wants to be “number one”. He wants the position of God. He wants to be the most wealthy the most respected, the most powerful. And anyone who objects is his enemy.
God is very intelligent. Seeing that we are envious, and that we all wish to be lords of as much as we can survey, He has placed us all down here together, and allowed us to direct that envy towards each other. In this way, hurting each other, “sewing and reaping”, we take repeated birth, lifetime after lifetime. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is not a sentiment. It is the law. Therefore one is born in a castle as a prince, and another is born the child of a drug addict. Another is aborted before he sees the light of day. This is “sewing and reaping”.
But God is very kind. Actually nothing is happening to the real person, the spirit soul. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” This body that the spirit soul lives in, it is perishable. And the soul is eternal. The soul, cannot be burnt by fire. The soul cannot be withered by the wind. The soul does not succumb to disease. The soul doesn’t grow old. Real spiritual life means to come not only to the understanding that we are not these temporary material bodies, but to the realization that “I am not this body; I am spirit”. But as long as we are under illusion of false identification with the flesh, and the demands of the flesh……..we suffer.
At night when we go to sleep, we dream. And when we wake up in the morning, we can understand that the nightmare we had is only a dream. In the same way, when we have real spiritual realization, we have direct perception that “I am not this body; I am an eternal spirit”. The bad dream of life in the material world, being killed in wars, dying of cancer, being robbed, being exploited, being betrayed…….all of this bad dream is to invoke in us the kinds of questions that you are asking. It is only one who sincerely begins to ask these questions, that you are asking, who is ready to hear spiritual answers.
Therefore God sends His representatives, His sons, and sometimes His daughters, into this material world, to tell us, “I am in this world; but I am not of this world.” And they begin to tell us how to become qualified to return to the spiritual world, to our real home.
And the only ticket for that journey, is as Jesus tells us: to “love the Lord thy God with all of thy heart, mind and strength”. That love is dormant in the heart of all of us. We are all the prodigal sons and daughters that Jesus speaks of. We have all turned our backs on our real Father, on our real home. And Jesus comes to gather us up and take us back home.
Jesus is God’s parole officer. We are in God’s penal institution. We are in hypnotherapy, experiencing a terrible dream. And Jesus says, “If you open your heart to me, I can take you out of all of this.” And those who really give their hearts to Jesus, they are given spiritual vision. They can demonstrate the understanding, that “I am not this body.” They become indifferent to the things of this world, as if these things were worthless. These are the ones, the few, who are opening their hearts to Jesus, so that Jesus is lifting off of them, the veil of illusory identification with the flesh. Recognizing themselves as eternal spiritual beings, they dance barefoot in the snow, as did Saint Francis. Because he was wearing the yoke that Jesus wears, he became as free as Jesus. But this can only be accomplished by remaining in constant communion with Jesus. Because Jesus has come as our teacher, as our guide. As long as the prisoner stays in touch with the parole officer, he remains free. But if he breaks parole, he again finds himself in prison.
The answer to your question, is that God has made this material world because of His love for us. He doesn’t want us to stay here. He wants us to come back home to the spiritual world. Therefore he sends His son. But the freedom of choice is ours. Even though we don’t want to return, even though we want to remain here and try to be in control, to enjoy in separation, to exploit, to be rulers, to decorate our vanity in so many ways - He sends His son, to ask us, “Are we having fun yet?”, trying to be independent little gods. We have to begin to understand the material world as His kindness upon us, as His inconceivable patience, as His not forcing us to come home……..and He feeds us, He shelters us, He allows us to do all manner of foolish and terrible things……..all with the hope that we will have a change of heart, and really begin to ask questions, as you are asking, and to look for real answers.
But most of us down here are hard-core prisoners. In the prison house, the hard core prisoner is not thinking about how to get out and join the free society. The hard core prisoner is thinking about how to make life in the prison work nicely for himself. There is a social system in every prison among the prisoners. One man wants to be the leader. He receives the respect of his followers, etc. He receives favors of different kinds. This is the nature of life in the material world. Everyone is trying to make it work for himself. Jesus tells us not to look for our reward in this world. But mankind is always thinking about how to make it into a nice place. It will never be a nice place. We are living in the world of birth and death. Birth, old age, disease and death. In the spiritual world there is no birth, no old age, no disease, and no death. We are invited to return home. But most of us are hard-core prisoners. And the one who is more intelligent begins to ask, “Surely there is something better than this. Why am I here? Why am I suffering? What is God’s real plan? How can I solve the real problems of life?'“ This means that your journey back to home, back to Godhead has actually begun. This is real intelligence.